Friday, 4 May 2018

Korea is One!

Democratic
Korean leader Kim Jong Un took a giant step for peace last week when he crossed
the Armistice line in Panmunjom for talks with the south Korean leader, Moon
Jae In. Their joint declaration and modest first steps to north–south normalisation
that have followed will, hopefully, pave the way for the “new era of peace”
that both leaders have pledged to work for.

Moon Jae In is responding to the demand
for peace on the street that propelled him into office at the last election
whilst his party reflects the views of realistic circles within the south
Korean ruling class that want an end to American-inspired confrontation and a
return to economic co-operation with the people’s government in the north.

Kim Jong Un is following in the footsteps
of great leader Kim Il Sung, who first proposed the establishment of a united
confederal republic based on the principle of ‘one country, two systems’ back
in 1980. That’s the principle that led to the peaceful return of the former
British and Portuguese colonies of Hong Kong and Macau to People’s China in
1997, and it’s one that clearly would end the imperialist imposed partition of
the Korean peninsula.

Last week’s summit showed that the Korean
people as a whole can resolve their problems without outside interference.
Whether or not they will depends on US imperialism, which has regularly
intervened in south Korean politics since 1945 to prop up venal, puppet leaders
willing to do the bidding of Washington, and whose troops continue to occupy
south Korea and threaten the north.

US president Donald Trump has been
claiming credit for the north–south summit and some of his supporters are
campaigning for a Nobel Peace Prize for the war-lord in the White House. The
peace prize is discredited by the fact that past recipients include former US
president Barack Obama, Henry Kissinger – the chief henchman of disgraced US
president Richard Nixon – and Mikhail Gorbachov, as well as three Israeli
leaders. But the immensely vain Donald Trump clearly wants it as another trophy
achievement. Well, if he wants it let him earn it when he meets Kim Jong Un in
the near future by taking genuine steps for peace on the Korean peninsula and
withdrawing all US troops from south Korea.